


Better Find Someone to Blame

by yuffiehighwind



Series: An Eternity in Cheese Country [5]
Category: Hercules: The Legendary Journeys, Xena: Warrior Princess
Genre: F/M, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2003-01-01
Updated: 2003-01-01
Packaged: 2017-11-20 02:03:13
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,046
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/580073
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/yuffiehighwind/pseuds/yuffiehighwind
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>After Xena's presumed death, Discord feels alienated from Ares. Luckily, she has Deimos to annoy her.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Better Find Someone to Blame

**Author's Note:**

> Takes place during the time gap between S5 Ep 19 "Looking Death in the Eye" and S5 Ep 20 "Livia."

When he turned, the family noticed.

Long before any hint of betrayal, any doubt of loyalty, back fifteen years when he started doting on a mortal girl from Amphipolis, Discord noticed. She noticed and urged herself to ignore it. After all,  _she_  was his Warrior Queen.

When he started tossing the title around to just any human floozy – correction – one certain human floozy, Discord noticed and got fed up. She urged herself to leave, to forget. For Nyx's sake, to  _at least_  get different quarters. But she couldn't. She just couldn't. How could she ever forget him? Her lover, her partner, her companion, her brother, her Ares?

People would talk. Minor deities would talk. Heads of state would talk and Olympians alike. Rumors spread. (There was a goddess for that too.) Gods had fallen in love with mortals plenty. Zeus, the King, certainly couldn't prevent that. But look what had happened because of one such mortal: Zeus was dead. And all because his least appreciated son, whom he never gave any due with shiny faced Apollo and the goody-two-shoes Hercules around, didn't off the bitch when he had the chance. Because he'd fallen in love. What tripe!

Discord was in the dining hall when she heard the news. The King was dead. Her father – (her fucking good-for-nothing, omni-fucking-present, never-there-nonetheless father) - was dead. Hercules, the "good" son, had killed him to save that Amphipolis tramp Xena's child.

It was almost like a dream come true.

There was a flaw in the axing of her parent - no one knew who his successor should be and there was no way the family could function without one. The main contenders were, of course, Zeus' eldest children and Olympians Athena, Apollo, Artemis, and Ares. His brothers and sister, it could be said, got the shaft, except the fact that none were too keen to accept the job in the first place. Poseidon wanted it, but couldn't bear to leave the ocean. He also held a long-standing hatred for Athena and wouldn't dare share a building with the "uptight wench."

But rumor had it that the King's death and all the gods' current problems could be traced back to Ares. If not because he outright helped Xena time and again, then it was because he never bothered to actually  _kill_  her. If not because he couldn't kill her, then it was because he was the one to inspire the passion for being a warrior in her in the first place. Or, of course, as the Furies contested (and they had this in writing) he fathered the brat. Besides, it was Let's All Blame Ares Day. Discord gladly put on a cone-shaped hat and joined in.

It didn't much matter that Ares also defended Xena's home during Athena's raid, resulting in the death of her champion warrior and lover Ilanna, plus the chafing of several hundred archers, because everyone was sick to death of him anyway, Discord especially. He'd betrayed her long ago. Wouldn't it be fitting for him to betray the rest of the family now, years later?

Despite Aphrodite's protestations, along with Cupid's, Hermes', Hestia's, and arguably all the sensible deities' input (and Ares' bitching), Athena went on with her plan to eliminate Xena and her child (who was  _fated_ to be the death of them all), and her little girlfriend too. And it worked  _charmingly_ , in a ball of flame careening off a cliff.

At least, that's what everybody  _thought._

 

* * *

 

Oooohhh, to fight, to scream, to throw pottery, slam a door, and start all over again. Replay. Discord wanted a replay button. Yes, as soon as such a thing was invented, she would invest in it.

She was watching a mortal family feud, smiling to herself. _"This is what my family was like,"_ she thought. _"Look, there is Father, in the wool chiton, and there's Mother, with the twitchy eyes. There is Ares, the eldest son, with the shovel, covering his ears and complaining. There is Hercules, the goody-two-shoes trying to make peace. And there is myself, who has just thrown a vase and left, slamming the door."_ She mulled over the scene and the memories it brought, realizing it really wasn't quite as amusing as she had first thought.

Discord noisily tapped her fingernails on the support beam she sat on up in the rafters. The mortals could not hear her; she was outside their range of perception. They could only be aware of her if she allowed them to be.

What the family was fighting about, Discord no longer knew. Long buried issues were being brought up, entirely unrelated to whatever she had used to instigate the argument. Lost in thought, she almost didn't notice her cousin materialize beside her.

"You probably can't feel it, but she is in  _so_  much pain right now." He chuckled, pointing to the mother. "She feels like it's all her fault, and can't  _stand_  another second."

As if on cue, the woman spoke.

"I…I cannot stand another  _moment_  in this house!"

"Meleanea, what are you saying?"

"I am leaving. I am  _leaving_ , Dimitrius!"

The woman, sobbing, charged out the same door through which her daughter had made her own dramatic exit. Discord felt a sort of static, electric surge in the house. Like a flute going flat. She tingled.

"Can you  _feel_  that?" Hot breath hit her left ear. She felt a hand run down her back. It was cold, like he'd dunked it in ice, but became hot like a coal. Discord shifted away.

"I feel discordance," she replied. She wasn't sure if it was her imagination or some freaky spell, but her cousin had seemed to be everywhere lately.

"If you were me - just pretend for a second - you'd feel the  _pain_. It's like some kinda thermal thing. Burns up the skin like fire, but not quite. Not like physical pain. Mental hurt's a whole 'nother game, and if you're not careful with it, you'll get scorched too."

Her cousin's name was Deimos, and he had an obsession – no, it was his birthright – with pain and terror. He could create it and he could sense it; both feelings. Discord could only create and feel tension, and general trouble. She did enjoy inflicting pain – it was almost a hobby – though she never understood it as an art. Whips and chains and paddles perhaps, but never true pain. Pain right down to the bone…or the heart.

And it bothered her how much Deimos seemed to be becoming infatuated with her. Paired with the facts he was Ares' son, uncannily resembled Strife, and after five minutes was annoying as piss on a bonfire, Discord was put off by Deimos' insistent presence just as much as she was put off by Ares' coldly indifferent demeanor.

She also never liked that her problems with love (it was the closest term she could apply) were as bad as if not worse than a mortal's, and griped to Aphrodite about this (after many drinks, of course). Cupid also kept giving her sympathetic glances in the years following Strife's death, as if they both shared some great loss. She knew her winged cousin had fucked the brat, and he was understandably missing him, but why he felt the need to act as though they had some… _connection_  due to this, Discord could not fathom.

"What would you know about pain of the mind? You barely have one." Point one for the goddess of discord.

"Yow. Ouch." Deimos put his hand over his heart. "You really know how to dish it," he said sarcastically. "What  _wouldn't_  I know about pain? I was born to it. Fish to water."

" _Duck_  to water." This was getting old. _Errrgh, poof away!_

The good son, "Hercules," was the only human remaining in the room. He sat in the corner, sadly staring at a crack in the floor. The electric buzzing of discordance was gone. According to Deimos, only a dull aching pain was left. The boy felt…lost. Solitary. Isolated. (And he had pulled a leg muscle in the fields.)

Discord tried avoiding Deimos' gaze as he told her this. He didn't giggle once (okay, maybe once) as he always did (it was compulsory), and if she concentrated enough, his sober speech on pain sounded almost like Strife on clouded days. Almost.

Not that Strife was a bright bulb either. He had the problem of not being able to sit still. Unlike Deimos, though, (naturally, beneath the bravado) Strife was humble – to a fault. It was silently understood for many years that he belonged to Ares. Deimos, despite admiring his father more than deemed healthy, wouldn't take "No." Or "Jump." Or "Do this." Too much of an ego. Bigger than Discord liked and bigger than the only other quality of his that could ever possibly interest her.

Because yeah, Cupid was a fuckin' pussy, but he was right. He was right all along, and every time she saw him – another of Ares' demon spawn – she felt like punching the sympathetic smile right off his face. Give him a new grin with, say, twenty less teeth.

And Deimos reminded her of Strife. But he was younger, not even a hundred. He had been aging in human years, for Nyx's sake, as most did at birth. (Not prissy princess Athena, though. She just had to spring out of Zeus' forehead in full battle regalia.) He didn't know a thing. He didn't even know pain - _true_  pain - which Discord picked up on as she found herself resisting the urge to interrupt him with her own life story - The Dumbass Godling's Guide to True Pain. _"He'd likely never know,"_ she thought. _"Not even if he gets a flaming oxcart dropped on his head."_

"Do you  _ever_  shut up?"

" _Excuse_  me?"

She shifted gears. "Why are you following me?"

"Wha…?"

"Oooh, where have your fancy words gone now, boy?"

"I'm not  _following_ you."

"Let me be clear--"

"No, I mean, I'm  _not_  following you."

Discord shook her head and hopped down off the rafters, landing gracefully on two leather-booted feet next to "Hercules," who was curled up in a ball on the floor.

"Oh, then why is this the tenth time I've run into you…hmm…no,  _you've_  happened upon  _me_ , this week?"

Deimos jumped as well, falling in a heap on the floor with a loud  _thud_. He staggered up. "Tha…that's not…The dining hall doesn't count."

"The Battle of Kuru-Dun was a private event. You weren't invited."

"Yeah, well--"

"My  _bathroom?_ "

"Had to…uh…take a leak."

"Gods don't piss, jackass."

"Alright, alright! I'm…Maybe I…It's a pretty freaky coincidence, eh?"

Discord rolled her eyes and exited the house. She walked down the stone path to the garden, passing sulking members of the family as she went. Discordance tingled in the atmosphere, right down to the space between her toes. Deimos felt the family's pain and started giggling involuntarily.

"Oh, just come out with it. You  _like_  me."

Yech, it was like a melodrama.

"Yeah, yeah I do, even though you're self-centered, egotistical, conniving, back-stabbing, bitchy, irritable, disagreeable--"

Discord turned to face him. "Deimos, I'm the goddess of fucking  _discord_."

His eyes briefly widened. She could practically see the gears turning in his skull, processing this information.

"Well, yeah, then that last one's a given. And…and you wear too much make-up, and those tits don't look too real..."

"You have made your point. Now…"

Discord couldn't finish. She looked at him. Really looked. It seemed her prognosis was correct and the godling – ridiculously her minor – really had no mind, or at least not much of one, except when it came to pain. Terror he failed at by being far more laughable than terrifying, but at least he was halfway decent at something.

She looked and looked and  _there_  it was, a ticket, a passport, a way to relive old times and, dare she think it, forget about Ares.

"What? What is it? Something in my teeth?"

_Nah._

"Just…go away, Deimos. You're cramping my style."

Discord turned and walked away, fading into purple mist, leaving Deimos standing there, dumbly looking on. After a few moments of pondering, his mouth widened in a dopey grin.

"Yeah, she wants to fuck me, alright."

**Author's Note:**

> -This was written back to back with "[We Oughta Buy You a Cadillac](http://archiveofourown.org/works/580048)."
> 
> -The title is a lyric from the song "Get Over It" by OK Go.
> 
> -I wrote this way back in 2003, and I can't for the life of me remember why this happened, but I think there was a 'fic somewhere, long ago, that had Deimos getting high from pain, Discord could feel discordance/anger in her gut in a similar way, and I incorporated that into my head!canon. 
> 
> -Like in the original Greek myth, Aphrodite and Ares are the parents of Deimos and Phobos, even though Deimos and Ares are explicitly cousins in TV canon.


End file.
